George Gershwin: Walking the Dog Context George Gershwin’s short ditty Walking the Dog has become a staple work for clarinettists. Composed in 1937, the work was originally used for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film score Shall We Dance. Interestingly, most of the score from the film has remained Read more…
Ruth Schönthal: Self-Portrait of the Artist as an Older Woman Context Ruth Schönthal was a Jewish-American pianist and composer who was of German birth. Schönthal was a remarkable pianist, dedicated pedagogue and keen composer throughout her lifetime, with her taking a professorship at several universities in New York. Schönthal’s compositional Read more…
Yann Tiersen: Comptine d’un autre été, l’après midi Context Composed as part of the soundtrack for the 2001 film Amélie, Comptine d’un autre été, l’après midi is one of the most iconic tracks. Composed for solo piano, the title loosely translates into ‘Nursery Rhyme from Another Summer’. Yann Tiersen composed Read more…
Francis Poulenc: Trois mouvements perpétuels Context Composed in 1918 when Poulenc was only 19 years old, Troi mouvements perpétuels is a short three movement suite for solo piano. The suite was premiered in December 1918 by Poulenc’s teacher, Ricardo Viñes and was dedicated to the artist Victor Hugo. The suite Read more…
Peter Maxwell Davies: Farewell to Stromness Context Composed in the late 1970s and premiered in 1980, Peter Maxwell Davies’ solo piano work, Farewell to Stromness, is one of his most accessible works. The piece was written as a protest against a proposed uranium mine near the small village of Stromness, Read more…
Camille Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre Context Camille Saint-Saëns’ tone poem, Danse Macabre was composed in 1874. It started out as an art song for voice and piano, but was soon adapted as an orchestral work. The work is based on a poem by Henri Cazalis, which is based upon French superstition: Read more…
Paul Hindemith: Posaune Sonate Der historische Kontext Während seiner Karriere versuchte Hindemith wenigstens eine Sonate für jedes Instrument zu komponieren. Seine Posaune Sonate wurde 1941 komponiert und hat vier kleine Sätze. Es ist vorgeschlagen worden, dass Hindemith zuerst nur drei Sätze komponierte und dann der vierte Satz wurde später enthalten. Read more…
Alexis Ffrench: Bluebird Context Contemporary pianist and composer Alexis Ffrench has been busy taking the world by storm in the last two years. His collection of solo piano works have been performed in a wealth of different venues. His music has made Ffrench a Spotify-era anomaly, with his music racking Read more…
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Continuo Context Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre was born in Paris, 1665. She was born into a family of musicians and she was deemed a child prodigy when she began learning to play the harpsichord at a young age. Read more…
Morton Feldman: For Aaron Copland Context Morton Feldman was born in 1926 into a Russian-Jewish family. From a young age he began to learn piano where he found his love for music and composition. Feldman learnt with and admired a range of different German-modernist composers such as Anton Webern and Read more…